Page 66 of Bound By Love
That possibility already had her teetering on the edge of madness.
She wanted to scream anddidscream in the beginning, but her vocal cords were too dry, raw, and torn to make any noise anymore. So, she lay there, scraping away at the rocks of the small hole the rubble created when it fell around her.
She pushed away the stone and funneled it behind her. It had taken time, but she’d started making her way out of the hole, or so she hoped. For all she knew, she was digging herself deeper.
She couldn’t think about that; it would only make the looming insanity worse. Lying there and doing nothing made everything worse. She had to do something.
But her energy was waning, and her body was growing weaker with every passing day and the exertion she used to dig. It was getting harder to make her way out.
So she stopped and rested as she tried to breathe through the constriction in her chest. She’d wiggled her way into tighter confines, making breathing more difficult.
Closing her eyes, Caro resisted the panic trying to rise. If she lost it in here, if she went mad from all the rock and uncertainty surrounding her, she’d never get out.
Instead of focusing on her inability to break free, she used her finger, which didn’t have a nail, to etch Saber’s face onto the rock before her. She longed to hold him again as badly as she did for fresh air and blood.
Saber was out there, somewhere. She still felt him through their bond but didn’t try to connect with him. She didn’t have the strength, and she couldn’t bear to find him closed off to her still.
Gathering what remained of her dwindling strength, Caro gripped the sword by her side and worked to bring it up toward her head. Finally, she managed to get it beside her in the hole and, using the tip of the blade, she worked to break and move more of the stones out of her way.
As she worked, she recalled what she saw before the cavern caved in. They’d destroyed the demons, she saw them die, but a different kind of demon haunted her here.
Every waking second was a never-ending nightmare, and most of her sleeping moments brought her more of them. Sometimes, dreams of Saber holding and kissing her broke through the nightmares.
During those dreams, she got lost in his arms. His peppermint smell filled her nostrils, and she lost herself to the joy he brought… only to wake to misery.
Caro tried to retain hope she would survive this. She would either be rescued or escape, but her hope faded as sleep continuously blended into waking.
She didn’t know how long she’d been down here, how much time had passed, or what day it was. It felt like an eternity.
Caro twisted her hands and sword before her, but she couldn’t see anything, not even the rocks keeping her trapped here. Blind and trapped, she barely cleaved to her sanity as she chipped away at more of the stones.
Please don’t let me be digging down. Please.
But she didn’t think that was possible. She’d landed on the ground, after all. There was no way for her to go down. It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
Shereallyhoped so.
Caro tilted her head back to take in the stones over her head. She’d give anything to see them, to seeanythingin this fucking place.
Her chest became more constricted as breathing became a difficult endeavor and anxiety clawed at her.Stop it! You’ll die down here if you don’t get control of yourself!
Her boots scratched against rock when she wiggled them to push herself forward. And then she heard something.
At first, she thought she imagined it, but there it was again… a scrape, a rattle, and then another scrape that had nothing to do withher. Caro held her breath while waiting for the rocks to collapse.
And then, miraculously, a pinprick of light flooded her prison. Caro gasped, and her fingers stretched toward the glow as she sought to break free.
She opened her mouth to cry for help, but only a tiny croak emerged. If there was someone out there, they’d never hear her.
Determined not to die here, Caro dug her toes into the rocks and pushed herself toward that light. It was there, just beyond her reach. A hope she didn’t have seconds ago but it taunted her as she remained unable to break free.
But as her hand stretched toward it, it moved further away from her.No!
The scream reverberated through her head as madness clawed at her mind until she was sure it would fracture and break apart. Was she dreaming again? Was this a new nightmare and she would wake to discover herself still locked in her prison?
She closed her eyes as she tried to contain the madness screeching like banshees across her mind. Trapped, starving, and denied this hope, everything was falling apart around her.
